Guardian Security Risk Management is a Danish consultancy, founded in 2005, with private and public clients operating in high risk areas. The firm provides specialist crisis management, including 24/7 monitoring and responses.
As part of their duty of care, organisations must ensure employees’ health, safety and wellbeing are protected. Guardian helps by managing security risks and instilling resilience to reactions to crises. The company achieves this through prevention strategies and appropriate crisis management responses.
For its “always on” 24/7 service, Guardian incorporated a tracking and monitoring tool – the Vismo Global Traveller App – into its offering. The app, developed by Vismo Global Tracking Solutions, works on users’ smartphones, tablets or tracking device, satellite trackers and satellite phones included.
The app uses GPS and other technologies, including Vismo’s own patented location technology, to give location accuracy. Crucially, the app enables Guardian to respond to any user who activates the app’s panic button.
Says Jens Ole Gye Pedersen, Operations Manager, Guardian: “We began partnering with Vismo in 2014, when we saw an opportunity to strengthen our clients’ duty of care provision to their employees. The attraction for us was the app’s all-in-one approach to employees’ safety when they travel between locations and work in high-risk areas.
“Its high-precision tracking, panic button for real-time panic alerts to manned security centres – in our case our Guardian Operations Centre – geo-fencing and live and historic locations information, were what we were looking for in a 24/7 monitoring and response service. The partnership between Guardian and Vismo grew from there and, from Guardian’s perspective, has benefited both parties, which in turn helps our clients even more.”
Colin Dale, Director of Global Sales at Vismo, has worked with Guardian since those early days to help identify where the Vismo app and associated services can best work with Guardian’s offerings. Colin says: “We agreed, jointly, that integrating the app into Guardian’s solutions would enable Guardian to provide an end-to-end monitoring service to its clients. At the same it would give additional peace of mind to client’s employees regardless of where they are in the world. The partnership is now well into its sixth year and has worked well from business case and duty of care perspectives.”
During an election rally in Baghdad, the Guardian-Vismo partnership proved to be pivotal for a media team reporting from the venue. Each team member had the Vismo app on their phone, allowing them to be identified by a remote Guardian Operations Centre should they activate the app’s panic button. Bomb explosions and gunfire separated the team and placed its members in extreme danger. A first bomb was followed by gunshots, fired aimlessly. People were running in fear, trying to seek safety. Within the confusion, a reporter colleague lost contact with the rest of the team and left the scene in a taxi, apparently heading to their hotel.
Meanwhile, another member of the team activated their panic button on the Vismo app, which automatically alerted the centre, where personnel listened to a covert recording sent from the phone and established that the team was in trouble.
The centre was able to track each member of the team and recognised that the group had separated. Communicating with the separated reporter via the Vismo app, centre personnel informed them that the taxi was heading in the opposite direction to the hotel and that they should instruct the taxi driver to turn around and go to the hotel.
He did. The reporter followed precise instructions given by Guardian’s personnel and was safely reunited with the rest of the team. When all the team had arrived at the hotel, the centre received geo-fence notifications from Vismo assuring them that everyone had returned to the safety of their hotel.
A new threat is Covid-19; for this Vismo integrates updated Covid-19 data from Johns Hopkins University into its tracking service. The result enables Guardian’s clients – and other clients – to see the exact location of an employee with the latest Covid-19 statistics overlaid on their position.
Jens Ole Gye Pedersen says: “It’s a new application of Vismo’s offering and is, and will continue to be for a while yet, very useful for clients. It also shows just how quickly Vismo and Guardian can bring responses to new threats to market.
“When tracking and monitoring clients in high-risk locations, it is essential that the solution is reliable and provides accurate locations, ensuring help can be sent immediately during a crisis. Partnering with Vismo has provided us with a precise solution to monitor and protect clients employees travelling throughout the world while offering peace of mind for our clients.
“Vismo is a vital tool when aiding clients in duress or hostage situations. Activating the panic alert sends an immediate alert from the device to our monitoring team, along with the clients’ location. During this process, Vismo covertly records audio which is available for playback and further allows us to determine the situation the traveller is in and follow an escalation process to suit. Going forward, I see our long-standing partnership with Vismo deepening, to the benefit of Guardian’s offerings and clients alike.”
